Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who is aggressively lobbying against a military strike on Syria, says the Obama administration has manipulated intelligence to push its case for U.S. involvement in the country's two-year civil war.

Grayson made the accusation in an interview published Wednesday by The Atlantic and offered more detail in a Thursday discussion with U.S. News. He says members of Congress are being given intelligence briefings without any evidence to support administration claims that Syrian leader Bashar Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons.

Grayson said he cannot discuss the classified briefings, but noted details in the administration's public, non-classified report are being contested.

The White House released its four-page public report Aug. 30, arguing that Assad's government killed 1,429 people on Aug. 21 with a planned chemical weapon attack. Evidence cited in that report included "intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used."

Grayson, however, says "the claim has been made that that information was completely mischaracterized."

He points to an article published by The Daily Caller that alleges the communications actually showed Syrian officers were surprised by the alleged chemical weapon attack. The communications, according to unnamed sources paraphrased in article, were intercepted by Israeli intelligence and "doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion."

"What they say in The Daily Caller is that [intercepted communications] would lead one to the opposite conclusion," Grayson said. "I don't know if it's right or wrong, [but] there's a very simple way to find out, that's for the administration to show me and other members of Congress" translated transcripts of the intercepts, he said.

Members of Congress are "not being given any of the underlying elements of the intelligence reports," according to Grayson. He's not sure if the information will come before the votes on a proposed strike next week.

The anti-war Democrat said there are other examples of intelligence he believes has been manipulated to favor war.

"Well yes," Grayson said, "but I'm very constrained about talking about it. ... This has become a fundamental problem with our system: The information we do get is limited, but beyond that we are very constrained in discussing it."

Lawmakers are unable to discuss among themselves classified intelligence about Syria unless they are inside an approved reading room beneath the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and questioning the official account of events, he said, is "actively discouraged."

The four-page White House report on the alleged attack is no more than "a briefing paper with arguments in favor of attacking Syria" that "doesn't present both sides of the issue," Grayson said.

"The administration wants to flood the zone by excluding other information or points of view," he alleged. "I think that it is interesting that the administration consistently refers to Assad doing this and Assad doing that and Assad doing the other thing without giving the public any evidence to support the proposition that Assad has done anything."

White House spokesperson Caitlin Hayden, who fields questions for the National Security Council, chose not to engage Grayson's accusation and directed questions about the veracity of intelligence to federal spy agencies.

The congressman needled administration representatives for more information during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel responded that the Syrian military communications are "probably classified," but that he's unaware of any intentional deception.

The likely outcome for the vote on military action is uncertain in each chamber. Opponents of military action cite intelligence failures before the Iraq War and the fact that many Syrian rebels are al-Qaida-associated religious fanatics who also commit atrocities. A defeat in Congress would embarrass Obama, who stated his intention to strike Syria before caving to pressure and announcing he would seek congressional approval.

"We can't go to war to spare anyone embarrassment," Grayson told U.S. News. "That would be utterly immoral, we're talking about shedding American blood. ... The president has already made that argument and it's falling on deaf ears."

They fidget. They avert their eyes. They squirrel. They scribble. They flip, they flop, bippity- bop and weave as each of the lonnnnnnngggessst painful second moves through an eternity of five minutes.

A pattern is emerging: The country holding the presidency of the G20 or the G8 carefully prepares an agenda, discusses it with its partners and puts together a program for the forum. Then something happens that either destroys the plans entirely or, at the least, fouls them up and forces an urgent discussion of the immediate crisis. Lebanon, Greece, Greece again, Libya, Cyprus and now Syria. In the modern world, nothing can be planned. Everything has to be done ad hoc, frantically reacting to events in hopes of guessing right.

Just two months ago, some looked forward to the summit in St. Petersburg mainly as an opportunity to open a new chapter in Russian-US relations. To some extent it was, but in the opposite direction. Instead of a pragmatic attempt to move toward a set of topics for dialogue, firm confirmation arrived that no dialogue exists or is foreseeable. The appearance of Edward Snowden, the fugitive former National Security Agency contractor, forced President Barack Obama to cancel a separate trip to Moscow on the eve of the summit, and the scandal involving the use of chemical weapons in Syria made it pointless to even have a private conversation at the G20 meeting.

Obama will arrive at the forum having announced in advance that a strike will be launched regardless of the position of the UN Security Council and the objections of other countries. It is impossible to imagine a situation in which the US president would take back these words in response to the arguments made by leaders who disagree. Politically, this is simply unthinkable and produces an absurd conversation in which everyone knows there is no chance of changing anyone's mind. So why waste the time?

From Russia’s perspective, everything happening around Syria today is a grandiose propaganda campaign with an incomprehensible purpose, because anyone can tell by looking at Obama how much he does not want to get drawn into another military action in the Middle East. Concepts are being blatantly manipulated: Chemical weapons were used in Syria (which is probably true), so the “red line” has been crossed and therefore a strike must be launched against the regime. It is taken for granted that only the government side could use chemical weapons.One can assume so, but it would be nice to have even a little evidence. The body of evidence cited by the United States amounts to nothing more than a mantra: We have no doubt that it was Assad. We have incontrovertible evidence. The evidence is secret, of course, but we have it, believe us.

If not for Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council and Prime Minister Tony Blair before the Parliament 10 years ago, it would be possible to cite “perfectly reliable” intelligence. After the Iraq precedent, however, this no longer works. Of course, every intelligence service has information that it cannot disclose, but to justify a war, one must provide something, at least the recording of the conversation in which Assad’s officers supposedly discuss the attack. Let the public hear it. There is still nothing but statements, even if they are absolutely definitive and permit no doubt about the regime’s guilt.

Until the last few days, Russia’s reaction to the growing American campaign was relatively soft, much softer than was to be expected given the general state of the relationship. In an interview on the eve of the summit, Putin spoke calmly and even positively about Obama, and with regard to the plans in Syria, he said that Russia might even support strong measures if there is incontrovertible evidence of the Syrian army’s guilt. Of course, this means nothing, because almost any evidence can be seen as controvertible, but still. However, the more the conflict intensifies and moves closer to a war that clearly raises doubts even among many US allies, the more the American political machine will operate in a straightforward and linear way.

Public opinion in America and the world must be quickly prepared for the campaign, so the propaganda push will intensify, including accusations that Russia cynically supports the bloody dictator. An explanation is needed for bypassing the UN Security Council.

For its part, Russia will likely turn up the heat of criticism and attacks on the US policy, trying to mobilize important countries – its BRICS and SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, counterparts — that share its view. After the US attack, the political process to organize the Geneva II conference will probably stop, first, because its consequences are unclear and time is needed to evaluate the situation, and second, because Moscow’s desire to work with Washington will rapidly cool.

In Russia, many people are pointing out the surprising shift in the dispute over the legitimacy of using force. Moscow is taking the traditional position — without sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, it is an aggression.

Ten years ago, the United States had bypassed the Security Council in putting together its “coalition of the willing,” but the George W. Bush administration did not pretend that the Iraq War was legal from the perspective of international law.

{…}Now Obama is announcing to the world that he will seek legitimacy for military action not from the international institution, but from his own country’s legislature.

In other words, he is treating international and domestic legitimacy as equal, and the vote of the Congress will be seen as an absolutely lawful basis for action. This triumph of unilateralism will happen not under the neo-conservative Bush, but under the liberal left Obama, who has always insisted on the need for joint action in the world arena.

What does all this mean for US-Russian relations?

The relationship is going through a strange phase. It is not hostility in the classical sense of a military or political rivalry or an ideological conflict. There is, instead, a growing alienation, a gulf in mutual understanding.

In the United States, it seems that almost no one can understand why Russia and President Vladimir Putin have latched on to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and thus have tried to find rational explanations, like arms contracts. Explanations involving principles of international relations, noninterference and concerns about making things worse are treated with skepticism. Such can’t be taken seriously.

In Russia, in turn, many people sincerely cannot understand what exactly the United States is doing in the Middle East. What does it hope to achieve? Its actions look contradictory and inconsistent.

Obama comes across as either a befuddled simpleton or a cynical manipulator.

As the discussions in Mexico and Northern Ireland have demonstrated, personal meetings between leaders do not clarify the situation, but quite the opposite.

In Russia, the United States is seen more and more as a source of global instability, made even more dangerous by the fact that its actions are dictated mainly by domestic political considerations and the alignment of forces between the parties in Congress.

This is the reason for the desire to neither cooperate with nor resist the the United States, but rather to try somehow to avoid it and minimize the risks from its policy.

Until recently, the dominant viewpoint among the Russian public was that the United States always knows what it wants and pursues its goals. The aggrandizement of the American strategy found its apotheosis in the popular notion of “manageable chaos” promoted by conservatives in Russia.

Supposedly, the United States is intentionally creating total chaos and turmoil in the Middle East so it will be easier to control everything in the muddy waters of never-ending crisis.

Now, of course, a different opinion is more often heard. The Americans are confused. They do not understand what to do, but they see the use of force as the solution to every problem, even when the consequences are unknown. Russia does not know how to work with such a partner. In any case, Putin seems inclined to this point of view.------------

Fyodor Lukyanov is the editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and a member of the Russian Council for International Affairs.

The G20 summit in St. Petersburg was supposed to be a serious discussion about the extreme turmoil affecting the global economy – especially in the West. Instead, the only growth and job creation in sight will be for the US military- industrial complex.

Another beneficiary will be assorted mercenaries plying their trade in the Levant.

The original Russian agenda is a road map towards stimulating “economic growth and job creation.”

Confronted with a horrendous economic scenario - with 90 percent of new jobs in the US qualifying as temporary, low wage and with no benefits - the ‘wag the dog’ response of the Obama administration is to start a new war in Syria to the benefit of, who else, Israel and the House of Saud (who will be picking up the tab).

Talk about the Obama Doctrine reaching new heights.

We make our own reality

For a while, the world was fooled by the notion that the Obama doctrine – extricating the US from George ‘Dubya’ Bush’s disastrous wars – would direct the superpower towards a modus vivendi with a multipolar world. That was a myth.

Add to it another myth; the ‘pivoting to Asia’ – significantly announced by Obama at the Pentagon – selling the notion that from now on Washington would focus on containing its rival for real, Beijing.

Yet most of the ‘pivoting’ so far has been pure hype – as Beijing quickly noticed. And the Middle East never left the equation – as the Obama administration kept performing cataclysmic geopolitical somersaults to finesse its ‘doctrine’.

And what a mess of a doctrine this is. Obama has given his blessing to every momentary ‘winner’ in Egypt - from the sinister SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Sisi military dictatorship.

The US has ‘led from behind’ in Libya, when in fact the bombing of Libya was initiated by AFRICOM and then transferred to NATO (that is, the African and European arms of the Pentagon).

It reconfigured the Global War on Terror (GWOT) into a newspeak-laden ‘Overseas Contingency Operations’ (OCO), in fact a ‘kinetic’ shadow war crammed with drones and death squads.

It weaponized hardcore Islamists and even Al-Qaeda offshoots in one country while supporting military goons in another; it solemnly brushed aside real pro-democracy protests (as in Bahrain); and in Syria, after being defied for over two-and-a-half years on the ‘Assad must go’ red line, it’s about to resort to default mode; good ol’ democracy bombed from above.

I have qualified this mess as the indispensable (bombing) nation syndrome – the benign hymn of the last resort that every ‘idealistic’ US President is required, sooner or later, to sing.

In Obama’s case, the hymn comes with the requisite Götterdämmerung overtones. We’re talking about the fragile ego of a pampered teenager blown to smithereens because, recklessly, he drew a ‘red line’ without thinking about the serious consequences; and now, afflicted by hubris and terrified of losing face, he’s on a path to deliver some heavy metal.

The narrative is not exactly uplifting; our tormented ‘hero’, weasel-style, is trying to extricate himself from the responsibility, stating that ‘US credibility’ is on the line, and not his own. He seems not to have noticed that US ‘credibility’ – not to mention US Tomahawk diplomacy – is already shattered all across the developing world (European poodles, though, bravely resist).

Whatever I say is legal, goes

Before the ‘red line’ fiasco, our Wagnerian lost soul would have profited from the G20 to once more lobby President Putin to extradite a real hero, Edward Snowden. Now he will be lobbying for his puny Tomahawk diplomacy. French President Francois Hollande, self-styled new American attack poodle, is already yapping. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may join him. Forget about discussing that pesky global economy.

Yet the majority of the G20 member-nations, from spied-upon Brazil and Mexico to Indonesia and Argentina, not to mention China, find this whole business utterly disgusting. They are very much aware that according to the UN Charter, article 2(4) makes it ILLEGAL for any country to use force or threaten to use force against another country; and article 2(7) makes an intervention in an internal or domestic dispute in another country also ILLEGAL.

The G20 might at least be a platform to discuss secret, serious diplomacy involving the US, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia to organize a diplomatic way out, leading to free and fair elections in Syria in 2014. Wait; this process already exists. It’s the Geneva II conference, which has been postponed month after month because the Syrian (armed) opposition refuses to discuss anything.

The Obama Doctrine has bombed not only the current G20 but in fact any possibility of a diplomatic solution for the Syrian tragedy. For starters, Obama obviously never read Sun Tzu. Naïve is an understatement; he telegraphed his move to the ‘enemy’, as in, “Hang in there; my bombs are coming, maybe now, maybe next week.” He said the whole thing would be “limited,” a “slap on the wrist.”

But now the ‘slap’ is morphing into an iron glove, hijacked by the war lobby in Capitol Hill via the Orwellian rhetoric of ‘change the momentum in the battlefield’ – code for what this has always been about from the beginning: regime change.

Bombing one of the oldest cities in the world during a perverse three-month window will do nothing but perpetuate the war (which is, essentially, the Obama administration agenda). The Pentagon never does ‘limited’ or ‘tailored’ stuff. This is going to be a much deadlier version of NATO in Kosovo deployed as the Air Force of the Albanian/Kosovars – then promoted from ‘terrorists’ to ‘freedom fighters’ (just like foreign mercenaries in Syria); NATO wouldn’t be foolish to have Western Europeans as ‘boots on the ground’.

The spin in Brussels is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel – who needs to face an election in two weeks – supported by Camembert attack dog Hollande, has been posing as the middle-woman between Putin and Obama, trying to delay the Tomahawks. That’s the rationale behind the latest BND - German intelligence – report, which contains ‘evidence’ of a dodgy phone call involving a Hezbollah higher-up and the Iranian embassy (presumably in Beirut, though it’s not specified). As if Hezbollah would discuss sensitive information on non-encrypted systems. Putin obviously won’t be convinced by this new ‘evidence’ to drop his support for Assad.

And even while this charade goes on, Moscow has been cleverly spreading its trade and commercial wings over an economically- and politically-ravaged Europe. Russia is no less than filling a US vacuum in Europe – as much as China filled a US vacuum in Africa before the Pentagon counterpunched with AFRICOM.

By now the different, sometimes converging, agendas of all those who want war on Syria are crystal clear. Essentially, it’s ‘the road to Damascus ends up in Tehran’.

The War Party in Washington, Israel and the House of Saud all know that new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s success depends on easing the sanctions and revitalizing the Iranian economy.

Tomahawks falling over Syria will virtually obliterate his push for a civilized dialogue between Iran and the US; the ultra-conservatives in Tehran will inevitably regain the upper hand.

So the Obama doctrine, on purpose, is also about bombing any possibility of meaningful dialogue with Tehran. The proof is that Obama eagerly listens to rabid Israeli-firsters such as Dennis Ross, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) think tank. Ross argues that bombing will reinforce the US’s “credibility” – as in threatening to go medieval further on down the road to prevent Iran from acquiring those evil, non-existent nuclear weapons.

And then, of course, there’s Pipelineistan – the elephant in the Syria frenzy room. There’s a lot of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean near the Syrian and Lebanese shorelines – arguably 90 percent more than in Israel.

So Syria is a great prize in itself – on the road to become a natural gas competitor to Qatar.

Add to it the possibility of completion – post-war – of the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. Privileged customers: Western Europe. Soon Qatar was being blocked on two fronts; by the House of Saud (who vetoed a pipeline traversing Saudi Arabia) and by the pipeline traversing Syria.

Thus the alliance with the US (and a privileged partnership with Exxon-Mobil), dependent on destroying any moves towards an Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, to the benefit of a Qatar-Syria-Turkey pipeline feeding European natural gas customers. For the US, there’s the extra incentive that such a pipeline would dent Gazprom’s hold over the European gas market.

None of that, of course, will be discussed at the G20; the Obama doctrine won’t allow it. Quite predictable, when international relations are prey to a hubristic superpower that still answers geopolitical challenges with gunboat diplomacy.

Syria with the gas reserves and a pipeline to exploit it would be a threat to the Saudis.

The US who attacked Afghanistan for sending Saudis with Saudi money to attack the US has now allied itself with psychopathic Islamist killers for at least the fifth time:* The mujahideen in Afghanistan* The noble Kosovars in former Yugoslavia* The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt* al Qaeda in Libya* al Qaeda in Syria

September 6, 2013How big will Obama lose on Syria resolution in the House?Rick Moran

As of now, the whip count according to WaPo is 103 House members publicly opposed to military action with another 102 leaning that way. Only 24 members have expressed support for the resolution. Fifty four Democrats have either come out in opposition to the resolution or are leaning in that direction.

This has the makings of an old fashioned hide beating.

The president has cancelled a fundraising trip to Hollywood next week in order to stay in DC and lobby the House. But unless there is an epic turnaround, Obama is likely to see the House give an historic rejection of his call for war against Syria.

Politico:If the House voted today on a resolution to attack Syria, President Barack Obama would lose -- and lose big.

That's the private assessment of House Republican and Democratic lawmakers and aides who are closely involved in the process.If the Senate passes a use-of-force resolution next week -- which is no sure thing -- the current dynamics suggest that the House would defeat it. That would represent a dramatic failure for Obama, and once again prove that his sway over Congress is extraordinarily limited. The loss would have serious reverberations throughout the next three months, when Obama faces off against Congress in a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.

Several Republican leadership aides, who are counting votes but not encouraging a position, say that there are roughly one to two dozen "yes" votes in favor of military action at this time. The stunningly low number is expected to grow a bit.

But senior aides say they expect, at most, between 50 and 60 Republicans to vote with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who support the president's plan to bomb Syria to stop Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons on his people. That would amount to less than one-third of the House Republican Conference.

That would mean the vast majority of the 200 House Democrats will need to vote with Obama for the resolution to pass. But Democrats privately say that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) can only round up between 115 and 130 "yes" votes.

High-level congressional sources believe there is some time -- but not much -- for Obama, Boehner and Pelosi to turn things around. But any vote to authorize an attack on Syria will be extraordinarily close, according to people in both parties with direct knowledge of the political dynamics in the House Republican Conference and Democratic Caucus.

Boehner and Cantor back the president's plan for "limited, proportional" strikes in Syria. Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is not convinced it's the right decision. McCarthy's calculus seems to be more in line with many House Republicans -- he has spoken to many of his allies in the last week, and the support for a U.S. strike on Syria is incredibly low, sources familiar with those discussions says say.

There is a question of whether Obama would attack even if the House rejected the resolution. After making such a huge show of going to Congress in the first place, if Obama were to attack anyway, there would be serious calls for his impeachment - joined, perhaps, by some ultra liberal Democrats.

Besides, Obama will probably be grateful he doesn't have to act and pull back - or take his case to the UN, which will also prove to be a futile gesture.

As I said yesterday on PJM's Tatler, the coming historic rejection of Obama has been 4 years in the making:

If Obama fails, it will have been a disaster 4 years in the making. His arrogance, his inability to work effectively and consult with Congress, his sneering condescension toward his opponents, and a glaring lack of leadership have all combined to set him up for a bi-partisan fall on Syria.

Don't bank it quite yet. But the fat lady is warming up in the wings and the president is running out of time and options to turn the situation around.

If you can believe it, the sycophantic, lickspittle New York Times has actually published a video that could be quite harmful to Obama's efforts to garner support for a strike on Syria. This video shows a group of Obama's freedom-fighters committing what any prosecutor in the world would charge as murder in the first degree and what would be tried by any world court as a war crime. In the video, a Syrian rebel commander stands before a group of kneeling prisoners with faces in the dirt and delivers a revolutionary diatribe before turning and shooting the nearest prisoner in the head. His shot triggers the rest of the waiting killers, who, standing behind the victims, open fire and complete the killing. The bodies are then shown being thrown into a hole in the ground, which will serve as their mass grave.The immediate question that comes to mind is, "If these are our allies, how much more viciously despicable could their enemies possibly be?" The second question has to be, "If they're capable of this, are they not equally capable of gassing a few thousand of their own provincials to garner world support for their cause?" You just can't help but wonder about that, now can you?

There is a remote chance those unfortunate dead may well serve to bring justice in the future to the murderous fanatics who took their lives.

First of all is the condemning video showing the killers face-on, and second is the grave, with the plentiful forensic evidence it could yield. When the winds of war blow no more in Syria, perhaps some global prosecutorial force will bring these killers into the halls of justice.

Now consider for a moment, if that should happen, that to the left, workers are the ground troops of the proletarian revolution. With that in mind, one can't help but wonder, if a trial of these rebel killers should come to pass, whether the lefty lawyers of the Obama Justice Department will insist to the jurisdictional court that this slaughter is nothing more than another case of workplace violence. Then of course, there is our own Genghis Jean Kerry, who is famously opposed to such barbarous battlefield behavior. It will be beyond interesting to see how Jean Fraud tap-dances around the issue of the United States providing airstrikes and missile attacks to support allies such as these.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to accept about these politically correct fools who rule us is that they are completely tone-deaf and blind as to just how incredibly absurd they make themselves look to us and the rest of the world -- the real world. Unfortunately, the world looks at us and says, "Hey, fools, you elected this incompetent jerk!"

I always look at the "Household" Number; that's the one that really counts (all of the stats are based on that one.) I nailed it last week at 227,000, but August Always surprises. I'm not guessing this month.

Michigan State University is investigating a video that purportedly shows a professor telling his class that Republicans were a bunch of “dying white people” who “raped this country” and wanted to prevent black people from voting.

...He told them the country is “still full of closet racists.”“What do you think is going on in South Carolina and North Carolina. Voter suppression. Its about getting black people not to vote. Why? Because black people tend to vote Democratic.”“Why would would Republicans want to do it?” he asked.

“Because Republicans are not a majority in this country anymore. They are a bunch of dead white people."

So nine million more baby boomers have left the work force and retired. That's basic demographics in the United States, this surge of retirees, it's arrival has been discussed for decades There is wave of old folks that is breaking on the beach, each wanting a Federal Social Security check.What's the beef?

AnonymousFri Sep 06, 02:49:00 PM EDTThey will repay the loans or forfeit their Social Security checks, when retirement age rolls around.As to responding to questions, that is something that you never do, WIO.

Or we would know why you continually waffle on questions regarding dual citizenship and your Israeli passport.

Just sayin'

Hi Rodent, I see you are to much of a coward to sign in now...

I am not a dual citizen, never have been, nor do I hold an Israeli passport. However I proudly would say that I do have the RIGHT to get an israeli passport at the time of my choosing.

No waffles here.

You are to dense to accept an answer that doesnt fit your fiction.

Now go back to your doobies and machine guns and dont kill any more Americans..

John "SOS" Kerry to Barbara Boxer on whether intelligence agencies disagree with his claim that assigning blame to Assad for the chem attack was a slam dunk: "“To my knowledge, I have no knowledge of any agency that was a dissenter or anybody who had, you know, an alternative theory.”

To my knowledge I have no knowledge. Obama Administration in a nutshell.

But Obama is going to double down and get the Donks behind him by reminding him that if they vote against it he will be a lame duck President who won't be able to ram any more of the left wing agenda through. And that suits me to a tee, perfect setup for next November.

In a setback for Western efforts to tighten sanctions against Iran, a top European Union court on Friday threw out penalties imposed on several Iranian businesses for their alleged ties to the country's disputed nuclear program.

The ruling by the EU's General Court in Luxembourg coincided with an announcement by the EU's top diplomat that she will meet with Tehran's new negotiator in hope of fostering better relations and breaking a stalemate over what the West says is Iran's quest for atomic weapons. The EU court ruled there wasn't sufficient evidence to justify the sanctions imposed by the 28-nation bloc on eight Iranian banks and companies.

The court said the sanctions will stay in place for at least two months pending any appeal.

Friday's EU court ruling voided the freezing of assets held in the EU by Post Bank Iran, Iran Insurance Company, Good Luck Shipping and Export Development Bank of Iran. It found that the bloc's governments couldn't "properly establish that they had provided support for nuclear proliferation."

Saw a report on TV and just caught it in passing. It showed (with map) the 33 US states where welfare recipients can receive 'more than they can receive earning minimum wage. A number of states offer over $40,000 when you add in all the benefits available. Michigan was one of them.

The report was on FOX News and there where no details so I kind of took it with a grain of salt; however, I looked it up this morning. The report was put out by the Cato Institute.

while the welfare figures are high regardless, the much higher numbers are do to the fact that you don't pay taxes on the welfare programs whereas you do in the minimum wage.

Tanner and Hughes award the national welfare championship to Hawaii, which offers $60,590 in annual welfare benefits, once you account for the fact that welfare benefits are tax-free to the recipient, compared to work-related wages. That’s the equivalent of $29.13 an hour. Rounding out the top five were D.C. ($50,820 per year and $24.43 an hour), Massachusetts ($50,540 and $24.30), Connecticut ($44,370 and $21.33), and New York ($43,700 and $21.01).

States with the lowest welfare benefits were Idaho ($11,150 and $5.36), Mississippi ($11,830 and $5.69), Tennessee ($12.120 and $5.83), Arkansas ($12,230 and $5.88), and Texas ($12,550 and $6.03).

Initially, I had assumed that the study didn't take into account the fact that those on minimum wage might be eligible for some welfare benefits that would supplement their wages; however, the study evidently did adjust for such things as the earned income credit.

You can't blame Obama for many of the macro trends afflicting the economy. Some have been building for decades, some were exacerbated under Bush, and many were aggravated by the policies of the last two Fed Chairmen. However, Obama has done nothing, zip, nada, in five years to ameliorate them.

His exit speech will amount to "I wish I could have done more to have corrected the mistakes of my predecessors but 'X' (put in whatever name or names you want) wouldn't allow me to do it. The 'X' have conspired against me and the American people.

Then as with all previous presidents he will start the "History will show that I..." meme.

The part about 'X' not allowing me to accomplish my goals is obviously BS. Obama has gone around the system whenever he felt like. Neither the Constitution nor anything else has stopped him from doing what he wanted to do. We've seen it with his drone policy, with the NSA programs, with his executive orders, with his ignoring any laws he dislikes, with his agencies writing rules that are against Congressional intent, by recess appointments when there is no recess; if there is an issue merely change the wording and redefine the issue.

A small but good example of the last involves a recent Homeland Security position, the advocate for illegal aliens.

A new job was created at Homeland Security, an advocate to help illegal aliens. When Congress took a look at that budget item they decided to kill it. The pulled it from the Homeland Security budget and defunded it. The vote on the amendment to pull it was unanimous, GOP and Dems alike voted to cut it. The bill was submitted to Obama. He signed it into law. But did the job disappear? No.

The job is still there. The same person is in the same position doing exactly the same work. However, the title of the position was changed to try to get around the prohibition. Where the funding is coming from, no one knows. Calls to the White House for an explanation have gone unanswered.

You guys mean I can go to Hawaii and get more than 40k a year on welfare? Can I just show up and give them my mailing address? I think I may just retire a bit early, sail my boat over with my golf clubs and enjoy my autumn years on welfare in Hawaii. Screw this IRA crap!

... France, which has offered the strongest support to Mr. Obama of the European allies, on Friday said that it would not strike Syria as part of a coalition until the United Nations completes its work on assessing the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria. That assessment is expected to take at least two more weeks.

The failure to forge a stronger coalition here in the face of opposition from the Russian host, President Vladimir V. Putin, raised the risks even further for Mr. Obama as he headed home to lobby Congress to give him the backing his international peers would not.

You must have been on sabbatical the last few days, Doug. I stated 3 days ago, at least, that this turkey wasn't going to make it to Thanksgiving - that it was dead'ern a doornail once it hit the House.

A little intentional noise in Syria, which sucks all the oxygen out of the news rooms, and the US Security Partner in Egypt makes a substantial political move.Judge US policy by the ongoing results, not the kabuki style rhetoric of the moment.

(Reuters) - Egypt's army-backed government will dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood as a non-governmental organization within days, a newspaper reported on Friday, a move that would press a crackdown on deposed President Mohamed Mursi's movement.

The move applies to the NGO registered by the Brotherhood in March in response to a lawsuit that argued the group had no legal status. It would mark a mostly symbolic legal blow to Mursi's group as the authorities round up its members in the harshest crackdown in decades.

The privately-owned Al-Shorouk newspaper said the decision would be taken "within days", quoting Hany Mahana, spokesman for the minister of social solidarity.

The same official was quoted by the state-run Al-Akhbar newspaper saying the decision was already taken.

Saw outtakes of a John McCain town hall meeting today. Got quite feisty. He had to have one guy thrown out for the language he was using. The video didn't show any support for him. All in all it was kind of heart warming.

06/09/2013 ABC News: US is planning an aerial strike in addition to a salvo of Tomahawk missiles from Navy destroyers; New York Times: Obama ordered expansion of list of targets following reports Assad moved troops, equipment.

Despite statements from both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that a US-led strike on Syria would be a "limited and tailored" military attack, ABC News reported on Thursday that the strike planned by Obama's national security team is "significantly larger" than most have anticipated.

According to ABC News, in additional to a salvo of 200 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from four Navy destroyers stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, the US is also planning an aerial campaign that is expected to last two days.

This campaign potentially includes an aerial bombardment of missiles and long range bombs from US-based B-2 stealth bombers that carry satellite-guided bombs, B-52 bombers, that can carry air-launched cruise missiles and Qatar-based B-1s that carry long-range, air-to-surface missiles, both ABC News and The New York Times reported.

"This military strike will do more damage to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad's forces in 48 hours than the Syrian rebels have done in two years," a national security official told ABC News.

Doug, how come you've been so quiet about the rich pickings over there in Polynesia?

There are some of US that are looking for an in-country colonial experience, Hawaii on the dole gets the citizen the tropical Polynesian experience, with a touch of that famously liberal Europeon style socialism tossed it as an added feature of their Hawaiian sabbatical.

You have never before even mentioned this grand opportunity for the unemployed youth of America, to migrate to Polynesia and get a taste of paradise, Polynesian style!

Man, life in American Polynesia, money for nothing and the chicks are free!

That in and of itself puts me in the lead. I've never cut and pasted an anonymous posting, no reason to. But you, anonymous take the time to study and dissect the situational analysis that are posted by the rat.

France is getting animated about its old colonial holdings, developing a new foreign policy rend line.

"I don't understand very well this willingness to intervene so swiftly, whereas we don't know what implications a military action will have on regional level, for example in Lebanon, where France has 1,000 peace soldiers under a U.N. mandate," said Marc Laffineur, member of the right wing opposition party UMP and former minister of veteran affairs.

"We can't break international rules. Up until now, France has always acted under a U.N. resolution – we need a U.N. resolution."

So what is up with France these days? After decades of staying out of regional conflicts, it has recently become a strong advocate of force projection.

France led the call for a Western attack on Libya in 2011 to prevent Moammar Gadhafi from bombing cities full of rebels, and its Air Force was a major player in the sorties that bombed Gadhafi's armored columns and military bases.

That same year French troops took part in attacks on the presidential palace in the Ivory Coast to remove strongman Laurent Gbagbo from power. In Mali in 2013, about 4,000 French paratroopers invaded to regain control of northern towns from al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Both Hollande and his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, acted with the approval of the United Nations and yet were still assailed by critics as "neo-colonialists," one of the nastiest things one can direct at a politician in France.

But in Syria, Hollande is prepared to go a step further, and like the U.S. had done in the Balkan wars to stop that conflict, use force without U.N. approval.

Analysts wonder whether Hollande is dodging problems at home by launching interventions abroad, much like President Clinton was accused of when he ordered cruise missile strikes against a drug plant in Sudan and desert spots in Afghanistan three days after Monica Lewinsky testified about her affair with him.

Hollande is wrestling with unpopularity and economic malaise, but analysts say Paris' stand on Syria has been consistently hawkish.

Since 2011, France has backed Syria's rebels, on both humanitarian and political grounds. Paris early on proposed arming the rebellion, a move discouraged by other European nations in the first year of the uprising.

"The French wanted to act, to strike, even before Aug. 21, but the U.S. didn't want to, so France couldn't act alone," said Samir Aita, Syrian journalist and editor in chief of the Arabic editions of Le Monde newspaper.

But following an alleged chemical attack near Damascus that killed more than 1,400 people in August, Hollande and many French felt a red line has been crossed.

"Chemical weapons have been used – Hollande is aware of the seriousness of these acts – and if the international community does nothing, not only Assad can continue chemical attacks, but other rogue states or terrorist groups may use them too," said Eduardo Cypel, spokesman for France's Socialist party. "It would be either the reign of impunity or the trivialization of the use of these weapons."

Clement Terme, analyst at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, says Hollande's approach is not unlike that of American "neoconservatives" in 2003 to justify the military action against Iraq, though the U.S. Congress resolution to go to war in Iraq was supported overwhelmingly with votes from Democrats and Republicans.

"There is also the cooperation between France and Gulf monarchies in particular Saudi Arabia. Due to its network of regional alliances, France is indeed involved in the civil war in Syria," he said.

The French involvement in Syria goes way back. With the defeat of the Ottoman empire at the conclusion of World War I, France oversaw Syria and Lebanon as protectorates till the end of World War II.

"If one looks at the history of the relationship between France and Syria, it is really a love-hate relationship – there is way more passion than reason because of the two countries' pasts," Aita said.

"Even today some people in France think that they have a historical responsibility toward Syria, which may be a reason why France is taking such a big risk by going it almost alone in attacking the Syrian regime."

Regardless, it may be too late for France and the U.S. to change course now, some say.

"Looking at Obama and Hollande's situation right now, it will be hard for them not to attack Syria now," Laffineur said. "Because if they don't, they risk losing face."

Hugh Hewitt has drunk the Obama Kool Aid on Syria. He thinks even if the President steps on his own crank and says something about red lines in a press conference, we have to follow through or Iran will think we are week. Who gives a shit what Iran thinks?

The alleged chemical weapons use in Syria is a provocation carried out by the rebels to attract a foreign-led strike, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the G20 summit.

There was no 50/50 split of opinion on the notion of a military strike against the Syrian President Bashar Assad, Putin stressed refuting earlier assumptions.

Only Turkey, Canada, Saudi Arabia and France joined the US push for intervention, he said, adding that the UK Prime Minister’s position was not supported by his citizens.

Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Italy were among the major world’s economies clearly opposed to military intervention.

President Putin said the G20 nations spent the “entire” Thursday evening discussing the Syrian crisis, which was followed by Putin’s bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron that lasted till 3am Moscow time.

Russia “will help Syria” in the event of a military strike, Putin stressed as he responded to a reporter’s question at the summit.

Saturday Sep 07, 2013Canada says it supports the United Sates and its allies who are contemplating a military action in Syria, but has no plans for a military intervention in the Arab country.

“Our government has been a very reluctant convert to the idea that there needs to be some Western military action regarding the Syrian situation,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters at an event in Toronto on Thursday.

“At the present time the government of Canada has no plans, we have no plans of our own, to have a Canadian military mission,” he added.http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/30/321165/canada-has-no-syria-intervention-plans/

Habu, always bombastic and as in this case, often wrong on the facts.

He was ahead of the curve on the financial collapse of 2008, I'll give him kudos for that prognostication.

By Keith JonesGlobal Research, September 06, 2013World Socialist Web Site 5 September 2013Region: CanadaTheme: US NATO War Agenda

Canada’s Conservative government has repeatedly voiced support for a US-led war on Syria. It has endorsed Washington’s lies about having incontrovertible proof that the Assad regime mounted a chemical weapons attack last month and it has pledged Canada’s support for the US waging war on Syria in defiance of international law.

Speaking to reporters August 28, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said “consequences” for the Syrian regime should not be blocked or impeded by the lack of United Nations’ Security Council authorization. Canada was “of one mind” with the US, Britain, and France and “will,” Baird vowed, “continue to work with them in lock-step.”

The next day, Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared himself a “reluctant convert” to “Western military action regarding the Syrian situation.” As Harper went on to explain, his reluctance was not due to any qualms about the US unilaterally attacking countries and carrying out “regime change.” Rather it arose from concerns about the potential danger to imperialist interests if the Syrian state were to fracture along ethnic-religious lines. “We have been, and remain, concerned,” said Harper, that “this conflict … is overwhelmingly sectarian in nature and does not have at present any ideal or obvious outcomes.”

That said, Harper emphasized his support for the US raining missiles and bombs on a poor, former colonial country. “We do support,” declared Canada’s prime minister, “our allies who are contemplating forceful action.”

President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart could not even agree on the factual point of whether a majority of G20 members supported or opposed military action.

Mr Obama said that most of the 19 countries represented at St Petersburg had backed the US position – and 11 duly signed a statement urging a "strong international response" to the poison gas attacks in Damascus.

But Mr Putin disputed this, pointing out that although David Cameron might have signed the statement, Parliament's vote against British military action showed that the Prime Minister did not speak for his country.

Ending the summit, Mr Putin said that world opinion was firmly against US-led intervention, adding that Russia would take Syria's side. "Will we help Syria? We will," he said. "We are already helping, we send arms."

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.